Lei, Christine

Christine Lei obtained her doctorate in Theory and Policy Studies from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and a lecturer at Nipissing University in Brantford.

2011 0-7734-3861-0This study revises the existing body of historical research by examining the critical role of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s (IBVM) in the process of establishing convent schooling in Hamilton, Canada West, in 1865. Without the diligent work of women religious, and in particular that of the Loretto Sisters, the history of higher education of Hamilton girls in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries would have been markedly different. This work adds to our understanding of nineteenth and twentieth-century education by examining the experiences of those students and teachers who participated in the day-to-day life of Loretto Hamilton.